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Anti-Taliban Pakistani girl shot in head .

A 14-YEAR-OLD girl who became a national heroine when she protested the Pakistani Taliban’s ban on education for girls in her home district has been shot in the head as she waited for a ride home from her beloved school, according to officials and witnesses.

Malala Yousufzai, who was only 11 when she stood up to the Taliban over their ban, was sitting in a school van in Swat with other students, waiting to go home, when an assailant approached, asked which student was Malala, then opened fire.She was airlifted to a hospital in the provincial capital, where she was reported in critical condition.

Doctors said the bullet fortunately did not enter her brain.

Claiming responsibility, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the main faction of Pakistan’s home-grown Taliban, warned that if she survived, it would return to attack her again.

Earlier this year, the TTP had stated that she was on its hit list for her “secular” views.

“She was young but she was promoting Western culture,” TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told local news media, adding that it was a warning to other youngsters.

The Pakistan military supposedly cleared Swat, a district in northern Pakistan, of Taliban in 2009, but the area still has a heavy military presence.

Two girls who were in the van and injured when the gunman opened fire described the attack to local reporters from their hospital beds.

Malala came to the world’s attention when her diary, written under a pseudonym, was the basis for a series of reports by the local Urdu language service of the BBC.

In it she described what was happening in Swat, which was then under Taliban control. Then, with the Taliban menace still present, in early 2009 Malala spoke out on television, always sticking carefully to her demand only for schooling.

In a Pakistani television appearance in Swat, with Taliban sympathisers in the audience, the then-preteen Malala had said, “I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education. And I am afraid of no one.”

Malala said then that her ambition was to become a politician.

“This country is in crisis, and our governments are lazy,” she said.

The shooting of the girl more than three years later immediately renewed debate over what to do about the Pakistani Taliban.

Despite their relentless violence since 2007, some Pakistanis see the extremist group as nothing more than a reaction to the central government’s support for the American presence in Afghanistan and US drone missile strikes in the country’s tribal area, the Taliban’s traditional area of operation.

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Author: disabledaccessdenied

I am a disabled woman who through no fault of my own has wheels under my ass. I rely on the decency and common sense of local, state and federal goverments, as well as the retail community to abide by the disabled access laws and provide adequate ramps, disabled toilets, and not use them as store rooms or broom closets. This blog exists to find the offenders and out them, inform them, and report them if necessary and shame them into doing the right thing when all else fails.
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